


she's so close to your heart

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Dubious Consent, F/F, Resurrection, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: She must be dreaming, because Vesper is talking to her again, the words bleeding out of her cut throat like a river. "Cassandra," Vesper's blood is saying, "Cassandra, Whitestone doesn't love your new family. Cassandra, please make sure it doesn't stop loving you too."
Relationships: Delilah Briarwood/Cassandra de Rolo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	she's so close to your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plutonianshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/gifts).



> You can't stop her  
> In the coils of her sweet spell  
> You can feel her  
> She's so close to your heart  
> — 'Carmilla', Theatres des Vampires

Cassandra is dreaming again.

She must be dreaming, because Vesper is talking to her again, the words bleeding out of her cut throat like a river. "Cassandra," Vesper's blood is saying, "Cassandra, Whitestone doesn't love your new family. Cassandra, please make sure it doesn't stop loving you too."

Cassandra cradles the back of Vesper's head in her palms, presses her sister's head forward and tries to seal the gash shut. It doesn't work, it never does, and Cassandra is never sure if that's a good thing.

"Maybe it doesn't matter," she says tonight, her fingers tangled in Vesper's bloodsoaked curls. "Maybe it's time for the de Rolos to be done with."

"That's not true," Vesper says, desperate as the bones of her fingers scramble for Cassandra's own hands. "I can't lose my sister a second time."

Cassandra holds her close, and doesn't tell her that it would really be a third time, or perhaps a fourth, a fifth. Doesn't tell her that it's better if neither of them try to count anymore.

**

"Cassandra? Cassandra, sweetheart, wake up."

Something is dripping on her forehead, too cold to be Vesper's blood. Her chest is tight, like she hasn't been breathing, and she can't feel her hands.

Cassandra opens her eyes with difficulty to find Delilah leaning over her, eyes full of concern. "Cassandra, are you here?"

Cassandra licks her lips, and her jaw cracks when she opens her mouth, but she's able to say, "Yes," through the pain in her dry throat. Her vision is still blurry at the edges, but the rest of the room is coming back into focus, the soft sheets of Delilah's bed gradually making themselves a comforting presence against her still-freezing hands. "I'm - I think I am."

"Good girl," Delilah murmurs. Her arm moves, and Cassandra feels the cool slide of a wet cloth across her forehead. She lifts one sluggish hand to touch it - water. "Careful," Delilah says. "You took a very long time to come back this time. Almost had me worried."

Death, then, and not a dream. She wonders what she'd done to displease Delilah this time, whether it had even been Delilah who killed her. She glances down at her chest, but her nightgown covers any new scars she might have gotten from Ripley or the guards. "I was talking to Vesper," she says. "She misses me. I thought I was dreaming."

Delilah's face breaks into a smile, dazzlingly real after Vesper's corpse. "That just means you're getting better at this, sweet girl," she says. "Soon you'll be able to pass back and forth as often as you want. Our own precious emissary."

Something about that feels wrong, to Cassandra's resurrection-tired mind, but she can't pull it apart just yet still turning Vesper's words over. If she is to be an emissary to the dead, then what did that make of Whitestone? The streets are riddled with dead, both buried and walking, and sometimes it feels like the only times she remembers what life is are when she climbs into Delilah's lap and lets herself be kissed senseless by her warm lips. "May I have supper?" Cassandra asks instead, because thinking about food is easier than trying to understand Delilah's future just yet.

"Of course." Delilah sets the damp towel aside on the table, replacing it on Cassandra's forehead with her own hand. "I asked the kitchen to start preparing something as soon as I realised you were taking longer to come back than I'd expected. It will be up right away, and some wine too."

Usually Cassandra likes going down to the dining hall for supper - lonely and out of place as she often feels at the high table with only Delilah for company now that Sylas has faded from the world. Even with just a few of the old servants drifting through, their eyes empty and their throats bleeding, it still makes her feel a little less like a prisoner in her own castle. But tonight, all she wants to do is lie back in Delilah's soft bed, let Delilah pet her hair and anchor her back in her tired body that's been mended and re-mended more times than she had ever thought possible.

"And maybe wine," Cassandra adds. Feeling has returned to her hands by now, even the one Vesper had held, and she gingerly touches her stomach. Under the fabric of her nightgown she can feel the puckered skin of last year's bullet hole, the one she keeps to remind herself how much she hates Delilah's little pet. But there's no new scarring, nor on her chest, either. She touches her lips, which are dry, and her neck, which is aching, but not so badly she thinks it was broken.

She is deeply aware of Delilah's gaze on her as she explores, the mix of curiosity and anticipation she always has when she looks at Cassandra at times like these, like she's just waiting for her to be clever enough to learn something new about Delilah's plans. It, too, feels different this time, and Cassandra wonders for the first time how long she spent dead.

If, one day, she will have spent more time dead than alive.

"Have you figured it out yet?" Delilah asks, and she's doing a poor job of disguising the hope in her voice.

"I know it was you," Cassandra says, but _who_ is the easy part, and Delilah's expression doesn't change. "I think -" Her vision still feels fuzzy, even though it's come back, and her head is light and far too heavy to lift all at once. Blood loss? It's hard to swallow. "My throat?"

Delilah hums in agreement, resting her hand there and drawing small circles along Cassandra's jawline with her thumb. The pressure is light but firm, makes her feel ... safe. "Strangled?"

"Not quite," Delilah says, but there's a knock on the chamber door before Cassandra can guess again. "That will be supper. Rest here," she says, getting up from the bed, and Cassandra can't help the soft noise of distress she makes at the loss of contact. "I'll be right back," Delilah says, and Cassandra leans back against her pillows, already aching from the loss of contact.

Cassandra watches her as she crosses the room, blinking the swimming black spots away from her vision. The physical aftereffects haven't lingered this long since her first time, and it doesn't seem right set against Delilah's idea that she was getting better at this.

She can hear Delilah and the servant murmuring to each other in the doorway, the words sharper than they should have been so far away. Cassandra licks her lips again, and this time, under the dry skin, she tastes the faint lingering tang of something metallic. Blood?

The door clicks shut again, and Delilah brings the small tray over to the bed. "Up," she urges, and Cassandra sits with difficulty. Delilah balances the tray across her legs, and Cassandra's gaze catches on the small bit of stained cloth wrapped around her wrist.

"Did I do that?" she asks. There's soup and a cup of wine on the tray, but they seem unimportant compared to the secrets hidden under the wrap. She knows Delilah's body almost as well as her own by now, and the promise of a new secret to learn and carry is the most enticing thing she's seen in longer than she cares to think about.

"In a sense." Delilah smiles, small and secret. "I'll show you in a moment. Eat first, you'll need your strength for the day ahead."

Cassandra eats, driven more from the memory of eating than from any real desire to. The meat is chewy and the vegetables overcooked, and she eats fast enough that the thin broth burns her tongue every time she swallows.

"The wine," Delilah urges her. Wraps her fingers over Cassandra's around the goblet's stem, and helps guide it to her mouth. Cassandra is so focussed on not spilling it that she doesn't think to ask why, and by the time the scent of it hits her nose, overwhelming and metallic, it's too late.

Cassandra chokes down the first sip of blood but the rest come easier, especially when Delilah's free hand massages her throat, helping her swallow. Cassandra drinks until there's nothing left, and then, clear-headed for the first time since she woke, eyes Delilah's wrapped wrist again. It must be the imprint of her own teeth underneath the cotton, and she wants to peel it back immediately. 

But as the first, exhilarating rush of clarity begins to ebb, reality begins to take its place in Cassandra's mind. "You bled me," she says, and - yes, anger, it's been too long since she's felt it but it's there, a hungry thing gnawing at the underside of her ribs.

"I had to," Delilah says gently. "The townspeople got their hands on you. They haven't forgiven you, but I needed to keep you safe." She bends and kisses Cassandra's forehead and the anger, too, fades away somewhat. "You're like Sylas now. And you know how to thrive like this."

Is that why Vesper had been so concerned that she was at risk of losing Whitestone's love? Did it matter what the city thought of her, if Delilah loved her enough to save her from anything else?

It's too many thoughts, for the amount of time she's been conscious. "I think I need to sleep," she says, and only after the words leave her mouth does she wonder if that's even possible for her anymore. 

"Of course," Delilah says. She moves the tray from Cassandra's bed and slips under the duvet next to her. "You'll need to sleep this off just like any resurrection sickness," she says, wrapping her arms around Cassandra, her cheek gentle against the top of Cassandra's head. "I want you to know, sweet girl," she continues, and Cassandra can't tell anymore if Delilah's voice is in her head or not, "That I am so, so proud of you."

**

Cassandra wakes from her first sleep as an undead woman hot and restless in Delilah's arms. Her skin is overly sensitive, and she can feel every individual fiber of her nightgown and Delilah's dress that is touching her bare skin. There's a nervous, hungry energy she's never felt before gathering at the base of her throat, and she feels -

She doesn't know how she feels. 

Cassandra rolls over carefully, examining the sleeping woman next to her. Freed of her jewellery and with her makeup smudged from where her face had been pressed against Cassandra's hair, she looks a sort of happy that Cassandra's never seen her before, not even on the first night she asked Cassandra into her bed. It's hard to reconcile this woman with the woman Delilah is in public, who commands the deaths of hundreds according to her various whims.

Or maybe it wasn't. Death had to look different to someone like Delilah, after all, and Cassandra has lost count of the number of times Delilah has saved her. Killed her, too, but as the years pass she grows ever more certain that she wouldn't trade the life she had now for ....

She would probably still trade it for something, but it's too hard to grasp what.

Delilah stirs, opens her eyes. She smiles up at Cassandra, and when Cassandra licks her suddenly dry lips, she tastes the faint snap of the arcane. "How are you feeling?" Delilah asks.

Cassandra sighs. Every part of her that isn't touching Delilah feels cold, and as she readjusts to the dim candlelight of the room, her headache is beginning to return. "I don't know," she says, because she doesn't lie to Delilah anymore. "I don't think it matters."

"Oh, sweetheart, of course it does." Delilah sits up, opening her arms, and Cassandra climbs into her lap without being bidden. She buries her face in Delilah's neck and cries like she hasn't since her old family died.

Delilah strokes her hair and doesn't scold her for being weak, or complain as Cassandra's tears roll down her throat and soak into the low neckline of her dress, and it just makes Cassandra cry even harder. Delilah runs comforting hands down her back, cups her breasts tenderly and kissing her cheeks until Cassandra's sobs subside.

"Better?" Delilah presses her hands against Cassandra's cheeks. "Cry everything out now, I have plans for you tonight."

Cassandra tries to sigh, and only then realises that she hasn't been breathing. But she feels her whole body relax in Delilah's arms and her skin is warming up, Delilah's care sending arousal curing around her spine. "Hungry," she decides. Runs her tongue across her teeth, feeling them sharper than they had ever been.

"Of course," Delilah says. She doesn't pretest as Cassandra takes her wrapped wrist in hand and tentatively starts to unwind the stained cloth. Underneath are six small puncture wounds ringed with the waxy imprint of the lipstick Delilah had put her in yesterday, and Cassandra a small thrill of excitement runs through Cassandra at the thought that she'd done this to her.

"Pretty," she murmurs, running her thumb over the bite. The punctures are bruising already, a deep purple that starts to swell with new blood as Cassandra's fingers continue to explore. "I wish I could remember giving it to you."

"You'll - _oh_ , use your teeth," she orders, as Cassandra presses down hard against one of the punctures and blood begins to trickle down her wrist. "You'll give me many more. I promise."

Cassandra lifts Delilah's bloody wrist, tongue flickering out to gently lick away the droplets snaking their way down her arm. It tastes better than the wine mixture, sweet and clear and easier to swallow. She shifts on Delilah's lap, and feels the familiar pressure of Delilah's fingers against her cunt, insistent against her smallclothes.

"Drink," Delilah says, breathless and proud, and Cassandra long ago accepted that she would do anything for that voice. "Drink, sweet girl, I promise you'll be so happy."

And Cassandra does. She wraps her lips around Delilah's open wrist and sucks as hard as she can, the blood filling her mouth quickly enough that she has to remind herself to swallow. Doesn't remind herself to breathe, and the more she thinks about it, the more intoxicating the prospect is.

Delilah's eyes are shut when she looks up, her head tipped back. Her face is open, rapturous, and Cassandra realises suddenly that Sylas must have done this for her once. That this is the first time since he died and she took his place in Delilah's bed that she's been able to give Delilah this kind of pleasure, this kind of _release_.

"You should have told me," she says, detaching her mouth from Delilah's wrist with difficulty. The taste of iron is beginning to drown out the magic clinging to her lips. "How much you missed this. What it could do to us."

"I couldn't have asked you," Delilah murmurs. She sounds very far away, and when Cassandra looks down, Delilah's arm and both their skirts are covered in blood. "You were already the best daughter I could have ever dreamed of. This was ... a contingency plan."

"Was it?" Cassandra presses. She doesn't know what she wants the answer to be - doesn't know when stopped wondering how much of her time with Delilah was laced with charms, when she decided she was glad that Delilah had taken her to bed. All she knows is that every time she died, Delilah brought her back, and this time was no exception.

Delilah flexes her fingers against Cassandra's cunt, hard against her clit, and Cassandra groans at the feeling, struggling to focus on Delilah's words. "You were destined to die when I met you," she says. "And look what beauty we turned that into. I never wanted to trap you in one place."

Cassandra rocks her hips down into Delilah's hand. She's still unbearably aware of the weight of her clothes against her skin, but the awareness is mingled now with that of her blood - of Delilah's freely given blood - running through her, faster than she'd ever thought blood could flow. "I don't feel trapped," she says, and thinks that this might be the first time there's ever been truth to that statement. "An emissary should be - in the spaces between, shouldn't she?"

" _Yes_ ," Delilah hisses, and when she opens her eyes, they're full of so much pride that Cassandra doesn't know how anyone could survive being the object of it for too long. "The Undying King is kind. Soon you can ask Him to change -"

Cassandra pulls Delilah's hand from between her legs and bites down on the unbroken wrist, her own scent mingling with the smell of Delilah's blood. "I don't want to change," she says, her voice muffled against Delilah's arm. Like this, she can straddle Delilah's thigh, press her knee between Delilah's legs and grind down against her through the layer of her skirt.

Delilah's dressed simply, but it's still too much fabric between them for Cassandra's liking, and Delilah must sense the same thing because she twists out of Cassandra's grip and slides her hands under Cassandra's nightgown. "Up," she says, "I want to see what's changed."

Cassandra lifts her arms obediently, and it's like she's a girl again but better because she's learned to love her body since then, has done the same thing to Delilah in return countless times. Delilah drops the nightgown on the floor and wastes no time getting her hands onto Cassandra's bare skin, and the temperature difference is an immediate shock.

"You're _cold_ ," Delilah murmurs, and Cassandra just nods, lulled by the rhythmic stroking of Delilah's thumbs over her nipples. "Beautiful and cold. Of course you're the only one who would be left here. I knew it would be you."

The words pull at something half-remembered. She looks at the blood, coating Delilah's fingers now, impossible to erase from their bed, and: "Vesper thinks I'm losing Whitestone. That I'm not loved by the city anymore."

"Your sister's wrong," Delilah says, and seals the words with a kiss. "Whitestone now isn't the Whitestone she wanted to build. Would she have brought you back, after sacrificing you to the Grey Hunt?"

 _Of course_ , Cassandra wants to say, _Vesper loved me, and she was clever, and_ \- but they both know that all records of seventh de Rolo children end after their Grey Hunts, and Delilah tenses the thigh between Cassandra's legs and she loses the train of thought, her forehead dropping down to rest on Delilah's shoulder.

"You're here," Delilah says, her hands still moving restlessly over Cassandra's chest. She tweaks her nipples, drags her nails down the valley between her breasts, her touch doing more than anything to reassure Cassandra that's she's anchored in this moment, in this bed. "Whitestone is standing and you're here. You're a Briarwood and you are loved and the spirits of the de Rolos can't touch you anymore. The Undying King won't let them here."

Delilah's right, Cassandra knows she is, and, "I am loved," she repeats, "But I still have to see them every time I die."

"Don't think about that," Delilah says. She grasps Cassandra's hips, pulls her more firmly against her thigh, and Cassandra can feel herself growing wet as Delilah moves her. She's still entirely too aware of the texture of her smallclothes, but now it's all pleasure and no discomfort, the thrill of finding out what has and hasn't changed about her body. It's astonishing, all the things she doesn't have to think about anymore now that she doesn't breathe.

She wraps her arms more firmly around Delilah's neck, holds on tight as she rides her thigh and listens to her soft words of reassurance. Delilah's moving too, small circles of her hips against Cassandra's knee, and _this_ , Cassandra thinks, _this is what I've wanted since I woke up._

"Welcome back," Delilah whispers. Her hands are everywhere, her blood is everywhere, and Cassandra kisses at her neck with purpose, drawing the thin skin between her teeth and sucking hard enough to bruise just like the marks of her teeth. "You're safe now," Delilah says, and Cassandra feels her voice, the very life of her vibrating through her throat, thrumming against her lips.

She'll never feel that in her own veins again. But as she pulls the neckline of Delilah's dress down even further, feeling the fabric part too easily under her new, unfamiliar strength - as she presses their breasts together and leans up to kiss Delilah properly, feels her open, immediate and eager -

Cassandra doesn't care.

This is exactly where she needs to be, for herself, for Delilah, for Whitestone. For the world.


End file.
